The Boy Scouts of America can now count Cadiz resident Wayne Creed as one if its elite Eagle Scouts.

Creed, an 18-year-old senior at Trigg County High School, said that only about four to five percent of scouts in the country attain the ranking of Eagle Scout, which is the highest ranking in the organization. Creed said he has been in Boy Scouts since kindergarten. He said he joined Troop 57 when he was in seventh grade, which is led by Larry Davis.

While many scouts don’t stick it out to the end, Creed said his parents served as a big inspiration and encouraged him throughout the years. He said he always had fun doing all his scouting activities, and it gave him experience with economics, camping and outdoor survival, among other things.

The big requirement for the Eagle ranking is a community service project known as the Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project. Creed said the project takes at least 80 hours. It is supposed to benefit a large group and the aspiring Eagle Scout must show a great deal of leadership, telling the volunteers on his project what to do. Creed chose to clean the Rogers Family Cemetery, which hadn’t been tended in several years. He recruited several of his fellow scouts, many of whom were looking to fulfill their 18 hours of community service. He and the others weeded the cemetery, put up a new fence and came back several times to check on it and clean the newer tombs again. He tried to clean some of the older headstones, but it didn’t work out quite as he had hoped.